


The Last Meal

by preciousbunnynoiz



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bittersweet Ending, Character Death, Child Death, Death, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:48:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21665071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/preciousbunnynoiz/pseuds/preciousbunnynoiz
Summary: The Raven Queen offers Taako a job, but a different one than Kravitz's
Relationships: Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone), The Raven Queen & Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 160





	The Last Meal

When Kravitz came home and told Taako that the Raven Queen wanted to see him Taako became unusually nervous.

Not to meet her. He had met her plenty of times and she had treated him more like a beloved son in law than anything.

This meeting, Kravitz told him, was different.

This was an official meeting and he and Lup and Barry were not invited.

It was not completely welcome if Taako was honest.

It had only been a week since Merle's death and as he has been the last of the IPRE group besides himself, Lup, and Barry it had hit hard.

Taako wasn't feeling particularly good feelings about death at the moment and now he had to go have a meeting with Goddess of death herself.

"I know it's been hard babe." Kravitz said as he held him close on the couch, "but I'm sure what she has to say is important."

Taako still considered blowing it off but that would mean pissing off his mother in law, his boyfriend and sister's boss, and an actual goddess in one person and that was a bridge too far, even for Taako.

(Especially being the last of the Tres Horny Boys. He wished he had someone who would understand why that made him feel alone.)

So Taako didn't blow it off.

He dressed in his finest pale pink shirt, his aquamarine robe, his jewel purple trousers and his kick ass holo fantasy doc martens. With a final adjust to his best hat (the one Magnus had bought him his mind reminded him) and his snazziest fingerless gloves (a gift from Merle that still had traces of his magic). He felt ready to face the Raven Queen.

Once he was ready Kravitz, decked out in his official goth glory, opened a rift and took him to the Raven Queen's throne room.

She was sitting on her throne every inch the goddess of death. Impressing all who saw her with who and what she was. 

Beside her stood Istus, her hands constantly knitting though she also was clearly here in an official capacity.

"Thank you Kravitz. You may go."

Kravitz looked over at Taako who smiled.

"Go on babe. I'll be good. I'm Taako." And a hundred years ago that would have worked, but now Kravitz frowned and took a step closer towards him and that wouldn't do.

"We both know she won't hurt me. I'm not okay but I don't want you getting in trouble with her." Taako said quickly and quietly.

Kravitz reached over and pulled Taako closer to kiss his forehead.

"Okay. I'll be waiting for you." And only then did he leave.

The Raven Queen had waited patiently for them to finish their exchange and for Kravitz to leave before speaking.

"Taako. I called you here because I have an earnest request of you." The Raven Queen began.

"Okay?"

"I want you to come and work for me."

Taako hadn't really known what the Raven Queen had wanted but he hadn't expected  _ that _ .

"Uh no offense Ma'am but I'm not really interested in hunting down necromancers. Besides they always say you shouldn't date your coworkers." Taako said once the silence had dragged on a beat too long, "yeah sure there's Barold and Lup but those two idiots took literal decades to even make a move. They are also workaholics which cha'boi is  _ not. _ I need my beauty sleep."

Istus snorted very inelegantly.

"I wasn't thinking of you being a reaper the same as Kravitz dear. I have better use for your talents."

"... I'm listening."

The Raven Queen looked to Istus who smiled.

"Just tell him dear. He can't agree unless he understands."

The Raven Queen sighed and nodded before standing up and walking to a window, signaling Taako to join her.

Taako walked over and stared out the window as well.

"Taako. Death is not meant to be cruel. It is the last kindness. A life may be short or painful or filled with fear but once the dead come to my realm they can let all that go. But while death itself isn't cruel dying often is. Especially for children. The trauma from dying can make a soul afraid to come to my realm. Afraid that the pain will continue or get worse. Especially for children who...did not have kind lives." 

"Well...yeah I can see that." Taako knew the fear that came from being a child who had no one, or only one person, to count on. Of being scared and hungry and frightened and afraid to trust.

"Do you know what a psychopomp is?" The Raven Queen continued.

"A creature that ushers the souls of the dead into the afterlife. Kravitz used to do it when he started with you." From the sounds of it he hadn't been very good at it. He was a bit too married to the dark and spooky aesthetic. 

The Raven Queen nodded.

"Not his finest work. He was always better as a bounty hunter. Taako- listen to my proposal one more time…"

Embra was dying.

She knew she was dying because she had stopped feeling cold. 

The pain and the cold and the bite of hunger in her stomach faded and then she took her last breathe and her soul separated from her body.

She looked down on her bony body half buried in the snow and wondered what would happen now.

Then a flash of bright colours made her turn her head and she gaped at the brightly coloured elf crouched next to her, looking at her body. 

He looked over at her and tilted his head to the side.

"That sucks. Starving to death is one of the shittier ways to die. Been hungry enough in my time to know that." He said and she nodded shyly. He could clearly see her and she noticed he was slightly insubstantial as well. 

Was he also a ghost?

"Well no reason to enter the afterlife hungry." The elf said standing up. That's when she noticed the other children standing near him.

The elf strode away from her body and she hurried after him.

"But I'm dead! I can't eat!" She protested.

"You can't eat living food but you can eat my food." He said with a grin as he pulled out a wand and with a flourish a wagon popped up, complete with a little kitchen.

"Now who wants to help?" He asked leaning against the side of the wagon.

The girl gaped at him before smiling a huge grin.

"I know you! You're Taako! From TV! Someone said at the end, if you're a kid and hungry or sad, that the Hero Taako comes to give you one last meal! I didn't think it was true!"

"You bet your ass it's true!"

"Nicola said she saw you once but she wasn't dead!" One of the other kids added.

"Ah! Sometimes it could go either way and I try to encourage the ones who have a choice to live." Taako explained as he started handing out little aprons to the kids gathered around him.

"Why? Why keep living when it's so hard?" A very angry and sad looking teen boy asked.

Taako stopped and put a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Because if I had given up when I had the choice this world and everyone in it would have ended over two hundred years ago. Because if I had given up I wouldn't have found the family that loved me and the place where I belonged." The boy looked down.

"I'm so tired." He whispered.

"I know." Taako said quietly, "I was too. Come on. These tacos aren't going to make themselves." 

Embra had never laughed so hard or smiled so much in her short life than when Taako taught them how to make tacos, telling them outrageous stories about his adventures. 

And when she finally tasted their creation nothing had ever tasted better or been as filling.

"Okay everyone! Up into the wagon! Next stop the afterlife!" Taako said and the children eagerly climbed aboard. 

Embra looked around but realised the teen boy from earlier was missing. She looked back at Taako to tell him but he just nodded, already acknowledging that he knew.

"Where'd he go?" She asked instead.

"He was one of the ones who had a choice. He decided to keep fighting after all." Taako explained. 

Embra looked back in the direction of her body.

"Why didn't I get a choice?" 

There was a pause and Taako put a hand on her shoulder.

"I don't know. But I do know that where you're going, you never have to be hungry again. And you can see more of Taako so who's the lucky one?" And the wink he threw tore a laugh from her and she grabbed his hand and walked back to the wagon.

Once Embra was inside Taako used his wand to open a rift and then drove the wagon through. 

It had been almost a hundred years since the Raven Queen had asked this of him.

Almost a hundred years since Hero Taako vanished into thin air.

Almost a hundred years since he came to lead the souls of children to the land of the dead. Not clad in black with a skull for a face carrying a terrifying scythe.

But wrapped in colour and laughter and bearing a final meal full of warmth.

He supposed Goddesses had good ideas occasionally.

And besides. 

Who didn't want to be a legend?

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This thought occurred to me and wouldn't leave me alone.
> 
> Also I feel the Taako at the end of this fic is a little more mature than in canon but still very Taako.


End file.
